Film: Tron / Tron Legacy
"The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships, motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways?"
My first encounter with Tron was the Simpson's Halloween Special where Homer finds a portal that transports him to a grid. My Dad explained that this was a reference to Tron - an early 80s film that was quite confusing, but graphically groundbreaking. And then I forgot about Tron for about a decade.
When Tron Legacy came out last December, I wasn't all too interested. It looked shiny, but I didn't know much about it. I was taken to see it, in 3D (my first 3D film) and I was almost instantly transfixed by the look of the film, the soundtrack, the excitement - everything about the film made me love it. Tron Legacy has now been released as a box set with the Blu-ray edition of the original Tron.
The original Tron, watching it through 21st Century eyes, is unbelievably outdated. So outdated, in fact, that I found myself having a little chuckle. Remember, that I saw Tron Legacy first, at the cinema and so I made many comparisons, probably quite unfairly. In 1982, when Tron was first released the graphics were astonishing, and so much effort went into making them that way. For example, computers didn't have the ability to automatically animate images and so each frames co-ordinates had to be entered by hand. It took the entry of 600 co-ordinates to create four seconds of film. The other piece of technology that was lacking was that which allowed recorded film of people to be integrated with computer created special effects. Hand drawn animation was used to meet this end, and heavy editing filled in the gaps.
The premise of the original Tron is that a hacker, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), is taken into a digital world from which he must escape with the help of a security program, Tron, created by the man who eventually becomes his business partner, Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner). Bridges and Boxleitner are the only two actors to appear in both the original and new Tron's.
Tron Legacy, fortunately, does not attempt to remake the original but rather to extend it. Kevin Flynn's son Sam (Garrett Hedlund) accidentally stumbles into the same cyber universe and finds his father. Bridges actually plays the two main roles in this film (as did various actors in the original), playing both Kevin Flynn and his creation CLU. As CLU is a computer program he hasn't aged since the original film - this was achieved using the same effects used in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to age and de-age Brad Pitt. As well as this the entire film was shot in 3D (and it did look excellent!).
One of my favourite roles in the film is the owner of the End Of The Line Club, Zuse (Tron trivia: named after computer pioneer Konrad Zuse), who is played by Michael Sheen. While all the acting in the film was excellent, Sheen was almost unrecognisable as the camp bar keeper who is apparently influenced by Mae West and Ziggy Stardust.
Comparing the two films makes it possible to see just how far film graphics have come in the last thirty years. Many of the same machines appear in both films and it's possible to draw comparison in how they move, how they look and what they can do. Having seen the original film, you pick up on many of the smaller references in Tron Legacy that relate back to the first Tron, and there is a hidden Mickey Mouse to find in each film. Alongside referencing the past film, there are also clever little references to technology. CLU, for example, is actually an old programming language.
Finally, I can't go without mentioning the soundtrack to Tron Legacy. Written and performed by Daft Punk, who actually make a small appearance in the film, it is without doubt one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. Another exciting development is the release of the CD R3C0NF1GURED, which involved remixes of the original soundtrack by Daft Punk by artists such as The Crystal Method and Boys Noize. As a complete package, I'm pleased to say that Tron Legacy pushes all the right boundaries.